All posts tagged Approval Rating

In a Think Tank post Tuesday, Aaron David Miller discussed what President Barack Obama’s interview with NPR suggests about where the Obama presidency is headed. Another post-Election Day interview helps provide insights about where public opinion is headed on the 44th president.

Talking with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in November, President Obama observed that the American people are going to want a “new car smell” when they vote for his successor in 2016. Findings from the December Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll bear this out: Fully 71% of Americans say that they want the next president to take a different approach from Mr. Obama. But, unlike with many of Mr. Obama’s two-term predecessors, that is not to say that Americans are more likely than they were before the election to want to trade in the Obama presidency for a new set of wheels before 2016. Read More »

There are a number of reasons the Democrats will almost certainly not win back the House of Representatives in 2014: Congressional redistricting after the 2010 Census favored the Republicans. The GOP has a small army of well-heeled incumbents on the fall ballot. And this year’s primaries did not roil the waters; they sent only three Republican House members (and one Democrat) to the sidelines.

But arguably the most compelling factor working against House Democrats is history. Read More »

A recent Think Tank post celebrated the “news” that President Barack Obama has a lower approval rating than George W. Bush. But it’s a stretch to compare the ratings of a sitting president with a former president who is largely out of the public debate. Unless, that is, you consider former President Bush’s discourse about whether the ALS Ice Bucket challenge is presidential to be inserting himself into the issues of the day.

Much like what Laura Bush did to her husband, a bucket of ice water should be dumped on the notion that there is any value to comparing approval ratings of presidents and private citizens–even if they used to be president. Read More »

Gallup’s finding that only 7% of Americans have significant confidence in our ineffectual and polarized Congress explains why much of the public seems to have tuned out politics and why so many people don’t think it matters whether they vote. Read More »

Going into the 2014 midterm election, those numbers would seem to inflame voters and foreshadow a lot of turnover, but recent history and current polling point to a different outcome.

First, while the first session of the 113th Congress set a standard for futility, it follows along a steady line of declining output. The numbers of bills enacted in the first session of Congress has been falling since 2003, according to data from Govtrack.us. The previous low? The first session of the 112th Congress… Read More »

A new set of polls this week suggests the continuing problems of the Affordable Care Act’s rollout have hit President Barack Obama’s presidency hard. A new Gallup poll has Mr. Obama at 40% approval. A CBS News poll has him at 37%.

The administration’s troubles with the law’s implementation and the sliding approval numbers seem to bear the marks of a great tradition in American politics: the second-term setback and swoon. Think back over the last few two-term presidencies and you’ll recall the problems, often self-inflicted.

President George W. Bush had the response to Hurricane Katrina, which some have already compared to Mr. Obama’s problems. President Bill Clinton had the Monica Lewinsky saga. President Ronald Reagan had the Iran-Contra affair. To be clear, those events and challenges were by no means the same, but all wound up being big, negative news stories that affected the trajectory of those presidencies.

How do Mr. Obama’s current problems with the ACA rollout compare and what can those past challenges tell us about what’s coming for this White House? Those are not easy questions to answer.

Yes, most second terms are marked by problems, but the public’s reactions to those problems, especially where presidential approval is concerned, can be very different… Read More »

A CNN/ORC International poll released Monday showed that President Barack Obama’s approval rating dropped to 45% — down eight points — in the last month, marking his lowest rating in the poll since November 2011.

The survey’s findings come after a particularly tough few weeks for the president as his administration responds to a series of controversies, including last week’s National Security Agency leaks, the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups for its investigations, and the handling of the Benghazi attacks last September. Read More »

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Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is led by Reid J. Epstein, with contributions from the rest of the bureau. Washington Wire now also includes Think Tank, our home for outside analysis from policy and political thinkers.